Calif. Execution Postponed Indefinitely

Killer's execution postponed indefinitely
Victim's mother: 'It feels like we just got punched in the stomach'

Tuesday, February 21, 2006; Posted: 10:17 p.m. EST (03:17 GMT)

Michael Morales was scheduled to have been executed by injection on Tuesday.

SAN QUENTIN, California (AP) -- State officials on Tuesday postponed indefinitely the execution of a condemned killer, saying they would be unable to comply with a judge's order that a medical professional administer the lethal injection.

The state notified the federal courts that it could not meet the judge's requirement that a person licensed to inject medications give the fatal dose of barbiturate in the execution chamber, a court spokeswoman said.

It was unclear when the execution would be carried out, but the delay could last for months because of legal questions surrounding California's method of lethal injection.

Prison officials were not immediately available for comment.

The 24-hour death warrant for Michael Morales was set to expire at 11:59 p.m. Tuesday. After that, state officials have to go back to the trial judge who imposed the death sentence in 1983 for another warrant.

Morales, 46, was supposed to die by lethal injection at 12:01 a.m. But the execution was put off until at least Tuesday night after two anesthesiologists who were going to be present objected to that they might have to advise the executioner if the inmate woke up or appeared to suffer pain.

"Any such intervention would clearly be medically unethical," the doctors, whose identities were not released, said in a statement. "As a result, we have withdrawn from participation in this current process."

The doctors had been brought in by a federal judge after Morales' attorneys argued that the three-part lethal injection process violates the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. The attorneys said a prisoner could feel excruciating pain from the last two chemicals if he were not fully sedated.

U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel gave prison officials a choice last week: bring in doctors to ensure Morales was properly anesthetized, or skip the usual paralyzing and heart-stopping drugs and execute him with an overdose of a sedative.

Prison officials had planned to press forward with the execution Tuesday night using the second option. The judge approved that decision, but said the sedative must be administered in the execution chamber by a person who is licensed by the state to inject medications intravenously. That group would include doctors, nurses and other medical technicians.

The state notified the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals late Tuesday afternoon that it did not intend to go forward with the execution, said Cathy Catterson, a clerk for the 9th Circuit.

The judge's ruling renewed an ethical debate that has persisted for many years about the proper role of doctors in executions and the suitability of the lethal injection method used in California and 35 other states.

The American Medical Association, the American Society of Anesthesiologists and the California Medical Association all opposed the anesthesiologists' participation as unethical and unprofessional.

The anesthesiologists would have joined another doctor who is on duty at all California executions to declare the prisoner dead and ensure proper medical procedures are followed. The doctor does not insert any of the intravenous lines and is not in the room during the execution itself; typically the doctor watches the inmate's vital signs on electronic monitors outside the death chamber.

Deborah Denno, a Fordham University law professor and expert on lethal injection, said Fogel's order seemed "like a desperate measure."

"These are not circumstances by which somebody ought to be executed," she said. "It's never been done before like this."

The U.S. Supreme Court has never directly addressed the constitutionality of lethal injection or whether it causes inmates excessive pain.

Morales was condemned in 1983 for killing 17-year-old Terri Winchell, who was attacked with a hammer, stabbed and left to die half-naked in a vineyard.

Morales had plotted the killing with a gay cousin who was jealous of Winchell's relationship with another man. The cousin was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

The victim's mother, Barbara Christian, was outraged by the repeated delays.

"I'm totally disillusioned with the justice system. We've been waiting 25 years with the expectancy that he is gonna pay for his crimes," she said. "It feels like we just got punched in the stomach."

The trial judge, Charles McGrath, joined Morales this month in asking Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for clemency. McGrath said he no longer believed a jailhouse informant whose testimony helped land Morales on death row.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

It took the botched executions of two inmates who claimed they were innocent before the system woke up and spared the life of one who admitted to being guilty. The death penalty as it stands today just doesn't seem fair. It is clear from the executions of Tookie Williams and Clarence Ray Allen that the executioners are flying blind when they administer the IV drugs that kill the condemned prisoners. To completely avoid the possibility of a condemned prisoner feeling pain when he is executed would require a medical professional to administer the IV's and monitor the condemned's state of conciousness with a brainwave monitor. Having an expert stand there and hold the condemned's hand to see if he is awake just doesn't cut it. If no medical professional is willing to participate, then we have the situation that we have with Morales today.

To those who say Morales is not paying for his crime, remember that he is not a free man and has not been free for the last 25 years. Isn't that enough, or must you have revenge too? Death row does have a few perks for prisoners that they don't get in the general population. This could actually bolster the argument for getting rid of the death penalty, if you are into punishment.

Morales - you should feel pain in life and in death for the "at least 23 times in the head with a hammer" "raped" "stabbed her to make sure she was dead"
Whether you meant to kill her or not, whether the "only"(I don't believe this) reason Morales was on death row was because of a perjured testimony made by another prisoner stating that Morales had bragged about the killing as being premeditated. The testimony was revealed to be false when he later said the conversation had taken place in Spanish, a language Morales does not speak...
too bad. Morales, from me to you, no death penalty proponents or Judges that change their mind years after their sentence.. BETWEEN JUST ME AND YOU - I look you in your murdering eyes and say "You must die"
...And should you live, because our justice system is too weak to stand behind killing someone like YOU that SHOULD die, and SHOULD have been killed long ago - may you live a fearful, painful wretched existence
Again, let me be clear, MORALES, this is between me and you. I have no remorse for you, and your lawyers and Judges can't protect you from the fury your dispicable crime.